John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859–1952)

analysis of facts, with certain levels of rigor and problem-solving abilities, to form a judgment

In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting natural phenomena. According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes.*Anjan Chakravartty, , §4 "Antirealism: Foils for scientific realism: §4.1: "Empiricism", in Edward N. Zalta, ed, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2013 edn: "Traditionally, instrumentalis